I want to talk about perseverance and not giving up when things aren’t going your way. I recently experienced that. I’ve also written about what to do when you miss some sort of event you were preparing for or fall short of your goal here, but today’s post is about how my race went, how I persevered, and how I found the good in it. You just may surprise yourself, too.
Perseverance. Never giving up.
I ran a 10k a while back, and it was the first race that I ever felt like maybe I wouldn’t finish or that I certainly wasn’t going to finish well. In the first mile, I remember thinking, “this isn’t good. Not a good start at all.” I then reconciled myself with the idea that I would not be setting any personal records, by any stretch of the imagination, and would probably just have to really slow down and give up on my goal of a certain time. In contrast, my brother was running amazingly well.
See, we had run several races before. The last couple were for fun, so we ran them side-by-side, and they were so much fun. Previous races were run like races: we ran as fast as each of us could, me usually in the lead. I had been running years before him and usually much more regularly than him. This year, Hurricane Harvey happened and I got sick enough that I couldn’t do anything for six weeks. So, when we started back to running, we were on even ground, and I really leaned on him to help keep me going. This race was the first event we had run since Harvey and since early in the previous year.
So first half mile
“Oh no. I’m already tired. My legs are locking up. Great. And he’s way in front of me.”
Second half of first mile
“Ok, I haven’t stopped yet. Not getting any worse, just not any better, either. Ok, I can keep going.”
Around the second mile, I started to even out, feel stronger, and my legs loosened up a bit. He was still in front of me, and I felt like I wouldn’t catch up, but at least I wasn’t falling further behind. I felt that perseverance.
Mile 3ish perseverance
We got on a nice cement straightaway and I caught up to him. That’s when the fun began. We were able to talk (less than the usual training run, because, you know, we were running fast). But it was fun. We were side-by-side, talking about different things. Then we went off-road, on a berm thing around the park that took us from one park to another. It was rocky, full of high, dead grass and weeds, and divots all over the place. I almost face-planted once when my foot traveled through what looked like ordinary high hay stuff, but was covering a nice ant hill that fully stopped the forward motion of my foot. Talk about hitting a wall. Luckily, I caught myself and continued on my merry way without embarrassing myself. I know my brother would have said something nice and caring like, “what’s wrong with you?” That’s basically what he said to me that one time I tripped on a broken section of the street and fell into a sideways roll. I thought it may have looked kind of cool, but apparently not.
The rest of the run
Anyway, we were together the rest of the way, able to talk, able to share in the grueling torture of making it through that off-road experience. When we came around the hill on the lake and saw the finish line, I was thrilled. I was next to my brother, something that hadn’t happened before in a race event. We would finish this thing together. And that’s just what we did.
We came into the final stretch, the finish line just ahead, and saw our parents, who had come to cheer us on, yelling to finish fast. We put on the steam and kicked it up another couple of notches to finish fast and strong, and together. And you know what? It was actually my second-best 10k ever and enough to qualify us for a good starting corral in the next half we were running. I’m so glad I shook off the idea of giving up on my goal and slinking away, defeated and feeling terrible about my race. I showed perseverance.